Sometimes we go fishing for interesting people and other times they jump into our boat. Our tattoos, colored hair, and generally loud personalities are like fishing with dynamite.

While I was sitting outside enjoying the beautiful patio at Spin Designer Hostel in El Nido, Brian sat down next to me and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing you talking about happiness earlier, and you look interesting…so I’m curious what your philosophy is.”

I didn’t expect a question like that from someone who looked so jovially unassuming, so naturally we dove straight into a deep conversation about happiness, god, religion, and what I like to call the Radiohead dilemma: “What the hell am I doing here?”

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk)

“For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by ataraxia—peace and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain—and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends.”

 My basic Epicurean answer (with the tangents peeled away) is that we’re here to pursue our own happiness, while not diminishing others’ happiness. And the pinnacle, the nirvana if you will, is adding to other people’s happiness.

Being involved in other people’s happiness creates connections, so strengthening existing friendships and forming new ones is a key path to happiness. The more fundamental question of what makes us happy is a deeper and ongoing discussion and one that we’re exploring through our travels, so I’m going to focus on the connection part for now.

“What the hell am I doing here?”

I’m here to connect with people. I’m here to contribute to their happiness – and hopefully them to mine. (Why else would I dress so oddly, if not to solicit a smile?) To be human is to not be alone. Even when we are alone, we find ways of keeping ourselves company: humming, whistling, talking to ourselves or chatting with the great golden eagle who transmits governmental secrets to us. Some even argue that our mind is split into two conciousnesses, connected by the corpus callosum and that we can physically observe this split by severing it.

We are also inherently communal creatures. Our survival improves through collaboration and solitary confinement remains one of the worst forms of punishment. So, one of my goals in life is to build a strong community.

“Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.”

While it was our differences that first brought us together, we quickly recognized our similarities – our compassion for people, our understanding of and desire for connection and togetherness, and our appreciation for the communities around us that formed our own connection to each other. So there I – the tattooed, American, atheist – sat with Brian – the conservative, Filipino, born-again Christian – listening to what he’d learned from his American studies in Positive Psychology and awed at bonds that can form between strangers.

Girl Alex joined in the conversation and the three of us spent hours talking about philosophy and Positive Psychology and how it aligns so well with our traveling mission of happiness and community building. That conversation grew into a friendship that enticed us to meet up with Brian in Manila, where we landed in a guesthouse full of more connections and friendships.

 

Written by Boy Alex Happiness, People, Ponderings